People (bottom) walk near the remains of burned homes after Hurricane Sandy on Oct. 31, 2012 in the Breezy Point neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. Extreme weather events have this year alone directly affected 15 million people and done hundreds of billions of damage to civil infrastructure.

Photograph by: Mario Tama
, Getty Images

A group of large institutional investors — they manage portfolios in Europe, North America, Asia, Australia and New Zealand holding more than $22.5 trillion in assets — has called for government action to address climate change.

It wants sharply reduced carbon emissions and serious policy frameworks that will encourage markets to drive investment in green energy technologies like wind and solar power that can reduce carbon fuel use.

“Current policies are insufficient to avert serious and dangerous impacts from climate change. Further delay in implementing adequately ambitious and clean energy policy will increase investment risk for institutional investors,” said an open letter from the coalition of seven large investment management organizations. “Governments are key in reducing the serious risks, losses and damage that climate change will cause, the risks to the investments and retirement savings of millions of people.”

The investors’ concerns parallel those of the World Bank. It says we’re on track for the catastrophic consequences of a world that is four degrees warmer than now. Among the impacts: droughts, floods, severe winters, lethal hot spells, super storms, famines, rising sea levels, reduced food production and sharply rising food prices.

Hardest hit, the bankers say, will be the poorest countries with the least capacity to respond. But rich countries won’t escape the consequences. They, too, will suffer in global turmoil over diminished food, dwindling fresh water supplies and shrinking markets.

So, on the eve of United Nations climate talks in Doha, Qatar, where countries will try to breathe life back into a moribund Kyoto Protocol that’s been hobbled by hypocrisy, foot-dragging and hostility from the worst greenhouse gas offenders — Canada among them — it appears the big money boys are awakening to the grim reality behind the fandango of denial.

One can see why from the extreme weather file kept by the World Resources Institute.

Back in January, torrential rains drove thousands from homes in Brazil while wildfires raged across Chile on the other side of South America.

A month later, extreme cold gripped Europe, where 650 perished. North America, on the other hand, had the warmest winter ever for the U.S. — four degrees above normal. Australia got massive flooding and record heat. In Africa’s Sahel, seasonal rains failed and drought followed.

By March, torrential rains were back in South America. Bolivia experienced severe flooding. But in the U.S., record warm temperatures brought an early start to the wildfire season and severe drought that by April affected 48 per cent of the U.S.

May brought floods to Africa. In Brazil, the floods became drought, the worst in 50 years. By June, more than 4,000 square kilometres of the drought-stricken U.S. were in flames. The heat — temperatures in Washington, D.C. were the highest in 149 years — triggered a rare and exceptionally violent thunderstorm that disrupted the lives of millions of people. In China, massive flooding forced evacuation for five million people.

The U.S. drought covered more than 60 per cent of the country in July, half of all counties in the U.S. were designated disaster areas and in 1,800 of them, emergency relief was required.

Rains returned to Asia in August. Another million people were displaced in China — where 60,000 homes were destroyed — and the Philippines. Floods affected another million people in Bangladesh. Daily rainfall records were set on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

In October, Hurricane Sandy pounded New York and New Jersey. Japan got a super-typhoon, the third monster cyclone to roar ashore this year. Nigeria had more than two million displaced and eight million affected when heavy rains caused two major rivers to overflow.

Extreme weather events have this year alone directly affected 15 million people and done hundreds of billions of damage to civil infrastructure.

The increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather is growing evidence of precisely what climate scientists have been warning about the effects of global warming. British, American and UN climate monitoring agencies now say there’s high probability things will get worse and perhaps rapidly.

That is why the bankers, investment houses and insurers are suddenly telling the politicians to start getting serious about climate change. Perhaps there’s a hint in this for Canadians, too.

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People (bottom) walk near the remains of burned homes after Hurricane Sandy on Oct. 31, 2012 in the Breezy Point neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. Extreme weather events have this year alone directly affected 15 million people and done hundreds of billions of damage to civil infrastructure.

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